BP is to outlay £4.9 billion on thousands of people hit by by the oil giant's Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The company said it expected the money - 7.8bn dollars - to come from the 20bn-dollar (£12.6bn) compensation fund that it set up following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010, the worst spill in US history.

BP stressed today the proposed settlement was "not an admission of liability".

Bob Dudley, BP Group's chief executive, said: "From the beginning, BP stepped up to meet our obligations to the communities in the Gulf Coast region and we've worked hard to deliver on that commitment for nearly two years.

"The proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the Deepwater Horizon accident and contributing further to economic and environmental restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast."

BP still has to resolve claims by the US government, Gulf states and its partners in the doomed Deepwater Horizon project, in which pressure from a well a mile below the ocean's surface blew up a massive drilling rig, killing 11 men and spewing oil into the sea for nearly three months.

The settlement will have no cap to compensate the complaints, who include thousands of fishermen who lost work, but BP's £4.9bn estimate makes it one of the largest class-action settlements.

After the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989, the company ultimately settled with the US government for one billion dollars, which would be about 1.8 billion (£1.1bn) today.